[00:00:00] Jim Faherty: It is a really important part of the process because it's a chance for universities to get a different perspective on this person who's applying, and often it's an academic perspective, which shines a bit more light into whether they are appropriate for this particular course, and what are the highlights that they can show through the project work they've done through some of the academic work that they've got. So, it's a really valuable part of the process, and it's really important to take it seriously, as well.
[00:00:25] Tim Munnerlyn: Welcome to Let's Talk Higher Ed podcast. I'm your host, Tim Munnerlyn, Senior Director of Education Partnerships at Cialfo. Cialfo supports counselors with our powerful and simple-to-use platform, helping counselors and students save time, and making higher education more accessible worldwide. We also support universities.
[00:01:13] Cialfo is your trusted partner too, you find right fit undergraduate students from the largest network of international high schools.
[00:01:20] On today's podcast, we discussed the UK referee statement with Jim Faherty from Green School Bali. We dive into his approach to the writing process, along with resources and timelines he uses, plus other helpful tips.
[00:01:34] Happy to have Jim Faherty. Jim and I have been known each other for a couple years now, and I'm very excited to have him back. Jim is starting a new position at Green School Bali. He's the High School Counselor and Pathways Coordinator there, and have been, like I said, known him for a couple years now.
[00:01:50] Jim, Bali doesn't sound terrible.
[00:01:53] Jim Faherty: Yeah, it was a hard decision, you know, offered a job in Bali in this amazing bamboo school in the middle of the jungle. Do I say yes? Yeah, it's a wonderful, wonderful place to work. If anyone gets the chance to visit, I encourage you to come visit, reach out to me because you, you only know the magic of this place once you've set foot in those bamboo gates and seen everything that's going on here. It's a truly, truly wonderful place to work.
[00:02:16] Tim Munnerlyn: Well, good luck with your year, and we're gonna be talking about the UK referee statement. We had a webinar on Wednesday applying to the UK, and we had a lot of questions about it. So, this is, gives us a chance to use our reside expert and, and I know your experience goes back to being admissions representative of yourself, and then, as a school counselor, uh, internationally.
[00:02:35] So, let's dive right into it. What's your approach as far as the importance of the referee statement?
[00:02:44] Jim Faherty: Yeah, so, it's an often overlooked part of the application process for UK schools. The students will be busy worrying about their grades and worrying about their personal statement and the counselors usually worried about whether they are making the right fit, looking at the predicted grades and, and working that out.
[00:03:01] And the, it can fall by the wayside sometimes, but it is a really important part of the process because it's a chance for universities to get a different perspective on this person who's applying, and often it's an academic perspective, which shines a bit more light into whether they are appropriate for this particular course, and what are the highlights that they can show through the project work they've done through some of the academic work that they've got. So, it's a really valuable part of the process. And it's really important to take it seriously, as well.
[00:03:30] Tim Munnerlyn: We had a lot of questions about the actual statement itself. Does a counselor write it? Do teachers write it? Take us through your approach to it, offer some general timelines. But what's your approach to putting together this one UK referee statement?
[00:03:46] Jim Faherty: So, I like to have quite a tight handle on the overall process, but also the final document, the final draft itself. So, I like to get the final edit before me, and have a look at that and make any changes before it gets sent off to UCAS, and the way that we approach this, in terms of the timeline, we always feel that starting earlier is better because it prepares everyone, not just the counselor or the, the student themselves, but the teachers.
[00:04:11] And what I like to do is actually get input from the teachers. And we send out a survey, well, before that, we actually sit down with the teachers and say, "Look, this is part of the university process. This is what the universities use it for. This is the kind of value that they have of it." And we make it really clear what everyone's objective is behind it.
[00:04:30] And then, we actually ask them to pitch in by writing a couple of paragraphs about the student for each of their subject areas. Now, what happens to those paragraphs? They get fed into the counselor, at least in my school. And my job then is to stitch that together into a holistic, authentic narrative, which highlights this student's potential and this student's abilities and aptitudes for the specific subject that I've applied to.
[00:04:56] Jim Faherty: So, that my way of doing it is making sure that everything that's coming through is fit for purpose, it's right, it's kind of on brand for this student and the application that they're making, but it also highlights the things that I think need to be highlighted as well.
[00:05:10] Tim Munnerlyn: I, I like what you said there, you, you set the stage for the count, for the teachers who are gonna be writing this, or adding their, their piece to this. We know this should be very much academically performance-driven as far as their narrative parts to that. I know that you involve the students in this process at some level, take us through that part.
[00:05:29] Jim Faherty: Yeah. So, we want to have an element of student voice in there as well. So, we also ask, after we've had that first meeting with the teachers, we, I think we give them about four to six weeks where we allow the students to write a kind of brag sheet about themselves and say, "Look, this process is happening.
[00:05:46] What are some of the key things that you want highlighted about you? What are some of the projects that you've been working on that need to be mentioned? Perhaps some of the words that your friends might use to describe you, or that you would use to describe yourself." And then, we send that to the teachers so that they can get this extra layer, or this extra perspective 'cause, of course, teachers will have dozens of kids in their classroom, and they might not have eyes open to every single project that this kid is working on. Some things of outside of school, competitions that they've been in, which might be relevant for that subject area. So, we give the students a chance to highlight those areas and get the teachers to write about those.
[00:06:22] And like I say, you know, I'm the final kind of doorkeeper there. So, if anything's been missed out, and I know that this student's done an amazing advocacy, community project, I can make sure that that goes in right at the very end, and it's all forming this really nice holistic picture.
[00:06:36] Tim Munnerlyn: So, you've got a, a student input element to this. You're setting the stage for the teachers to add their content to it as well. This all is getting funneled towards you. Take us through the final step. You've got all these elements, take us through your final step.
[00:06:53] Jim Faherty: Yeah. Final step would be not reading out to the student, but kind of saying, "Look, I've got these touchpoints here. Is there anything else that I'm missing?" And having a final check-in with student,
[00:07:03] Tim Munnerlyn: Wow, ok.
[00:07:03] Jim Faherty: um, 'cause of course, as they move through their, their final years of school, there are other projects that they work on and their things that kind of come up last minute.
[00:07:10] I know in my previous school, the extended essay for the IB, you know, that's a big research piece that they do over summer. So, making sure that, you know, is there something that's changed? Is there something that you've done which needs to be mentioned? And from a purely grammatical perspective, making sure that there's no grammar or syntax errors in its fit for purpose.
[00:07:28] Tim Munnerlyn: Right, right. I, this sounds very time-consuming, Jim, and I do like what you've just done there. You've given the student kind of a preview of it, which I think is, is definitely appropriate, you're not giving away anything, you're just making sure everything's being covered. We're talking a little bit earlier kind of timelines and things like this.
[00:07:45] You talked about even starting in the spring of the previous year because these things take so much time. Take us through a little bit of a, of a timeframe in general, speaking of how to kind of morph this all together.
[00:07:57] Jim Faherty: Yeah. So, we, we tend to start things early in this process because we think, you know, the more education you can do about it, the better, so that everyone's on the same page, everyone in, in the school and in the organization is on the same page, but also there's a very practical reason for that.
[00:08:09] And working in an international school with a transient community, some teachers might be leaving at the end of that penultimate year. And then, you might be in that horrible situation where you get to grade 12 or the final year of school, and that teacher that knows this kid really well is actually gone, and you're left with no one to write their letter.
[00:08:25] So, we start early and we make sure that those letters are in process and being finished, and any staff leavers have to identify themselves fairly early on as well, so that we can have a timeframe for them and say, "Look, we're gonna give you a certain number of weeks to write this letter, check in with this, uh, student so you can get the brag sheet, you can get the highlights and make sure that's already and good to go before you leave the school on your onwards to your next adventure." Because it can be really, really hard to track someone down once they've left an organization, and in reality, you know, if you want a, let's say, a maths recommendation letter, no one else can write that other than a math teacher and the universities won't accept it written by anyone else other than an academic advisor in that specific subject area.
[00:09:07] So, that's why it's really important to make sure that the conversations start early, we have a clear, open view of this timeframe, and it means that no one's rushing, as well, the last minute.
[00:09:17] Tim Munnerlyn: Right. That's a great point there, I mean, the biggest part of your job, if you're gonna make your job easier, is to get that information from teachers and they, and they do leave school, so make sure that you're doing that. You wrote a lot within our Cialfo Community about UK missions, and obviously, you've just put together really great resource, which will link in the show notes about more specific resources and approaches, and, again, specifics about writing the UK referee statement. Final tips, advice, words of encouragement for all of our counselors out there.
[00:09:48] Jim Faherty: Yeah, I guess I've got one hot tip, which, um, people might not know about, and that is that even though the UCAS portal itself only accepts one referee letter or, or, reference letter, you can actually submit others on a case by case basis. So, for example, if you have a student who's done some amazing advocacy work outside of school, and they're working on really big projects, which mean a lot to them, they might have been working with a mentor or a manager in some capacity. Some universities will accept that as it does give them another perspective, a very valuable perspective on really important core work that this student has done.
[00:10:24] So, it's worth reaching out to universities, when you get your final five UCAS list reach out to these universities' admissions departments, send them an email, and say, "Look, this student does have a, an additional letter. Is there any chance that I can upload that?" And you might find that they say, "Yes, you can email it over, we can upload it and see that side by side along the other data that they've got for the student." 'Cause it does add a lot of value, a lot of perspective, especially for students who are coming from either a non-traditional academic background or who are doing really, really great things outside of school, which need to be highlighted.
[00:10:55] Tim Munnerlyn: That's a great tip. I, I don't think I've ever done it unless it was solicited directly from the university. So, that is a great tip out there. My top takeaways is, is start early, gather information from critical sources, obviously, the teachers are the biggest part of this, especially from their higher levels or their A-level teachers.
[00:11:14] And then, at the same time, I really like that element of, of bringing the student into the process, that can be so beneficial and you can learn so much, and adds depth to that. Again, we will link a bunch of resources in here that you've provided for us in the past. Jim, thanks so much for taking time outta your busy schedule to offer, uh, some insights into this.
[00:11:32] Jim Faherty: My absolute pleasure, and on that note, I should probably go and finish editing the reference letters that are in my inbox.
[00:11:40] Tim Munnerlyn: Good luck, as always. Thank you, Jim, and have a great rest of your day.
[00:11:44] Jim Faherty: Thanks a lot, Tim. Take care.
[00:11:45] Tim Munnerlyn: Before you go, if you have any students applying to UK this application season, you may want to know more about our exclusive Cialfo feature Direct Apply UK, also known as DAUK. DAUK allows your students to apply to all UK universities directly on the Cialfo platform with no application fees, guaranteed Cialfo scholarships to select UK universities, and enjoy free visa processing and pre-departure support.
[00:12:12] DAUK's integrated feature saves time and money and also provides end-to-end support. For more information, feel free to contact your Cialfo CX manager or send us a request via Cialfo. A link is in the show notes. Thank you, and we hope you have a successful application season.